the trials of group work

After going over my evaluation with my Penn mentor and visiting other schools through my cross visits I felt moved to plan more activities that would require my students to work collaboratively with one another. Moreover, coming to an end on my unit on the middle ages I figured it an opportune time for the students to learn about Africa and the Americas prior to the age of exploration. So this past week I introduced them to a group project that they would work on over the next week and a half. Each group would be given an empire in either the Americas or Africa that they would research and then teach the class on. Nonetheless, on Thursday before I could even get to the meat of the project I met much resistance.

I had strategically grouped the students based on personality and ability. In addition, I had the students take a multiple intelligence test and informed them that I used these results, in addition to many other factors, to determine their groups. I had anticipated a few complaints so in effort to get them thinking about the importance of group work I had asked them to list the benefits of group work in their Do Now and introduced the word Ujima meaning collective work or responsibility in kiswahilli. Nonetheless, as soon as I announced the groups many were disgruntled; some refused to move from their seat to their assigned groups; while others, blurted out that they did not want to work in a particular groups because their group was dumb. After raising my voice, in class parent phone calls and a few threats I had quelled the insurrection. I wondered why they were so anti-group work and asked my self if there was anything I could have done  differently to make them more comfortable. The next day went much better. They divided roles and responsibilities then picked the research area that they would be working on. Next week they will continue to work in groups on their projects and I am hoping that there is no regression and that through this experience they become more comfortable in working with others.